Rebel leader accuses Hezbollah of invading Syria - as it happened
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Syrian minister warns of retaliation if Israel strikes Syria Moallem says government will attend peace talks But announcement backed with inflammatory demands Foreign minister vows Assad staying until elections in 2014 Calls for referendum on any peace talks result White House reiterates that Assad must go Syria civil war spinning out of control, says UN Syrian National Coalition asks EU to send arms quickly US criticises Moscow over anti-aircraft missiles
This image from amateur video obtained by a group which calls itself Ugarit News, which AP says is consistent with its reporting, shows a rebel fighter firing a mortar with the help of a drawstring in Aleppo, Syria, yesterday. Photograph: AP Photograph: Anonymous/AP
This image from amateur video obtained by a group which calls itself Ugarit News, which AP says is consistent with its reporting, shows a rebel fighter firing a mortar with the help of a drawstring in Aleppo, Syria, yesterday. Photograph: AP Photograph: Anonymous/AP
We're going to wrap up our live blog coverage of Syria for the day. Here's a summary of where things stand:
The Local Coordination Committees of Syria, an activist monitoring group, reports that at least83 people were killed Wednesday in Syria, including 22 in and around Damascus, 19 in Lattakia and 13 in Homs. The numbers cannot be verified because media access to Syria is limited.
Salim Idriss, commander of the Free Syrian Army, accused Hezbollah fighters of "invading" Syria in a BBC interview and called for more weapons for the rebels.
The Syrian foreign minister said the government would participate in peace talks planned to be held in Geneva next month "with every good intention" to reach a deal. But his proposals seemed to gloss over the depth of the Syrian crisis.
FM Walid al-Moallem said president Assad would complete his term ending in 2014 and may run again. "If the people want him to run, he will run," Moallem said. "If the people don't want that, I don't think he will." He also said any peace agreement would need to pass a national referendum in a country the UN secretary general described Wednesday as "disintegrating."
The United States reiterated its declaration that Assad must be removed as Syrian head of state. The state department also issued a strongly worded condemnation of Hezbollah's involvement in the Syrian war, calling it an "extremely dangerous escalation." The French foreign minister estimated the number of Hezbollah fighters in Syria at 3,000-4,000.
Syrian state media reported that Republican Guard forces backed by Hezbollah fighters seized an air base in Dabaa village near the town of Qusair on Wednesday. State forces appeared to be gaining the upper hand against the rebels in the battle for Qusair, a key passage to the north from Damascus.
The United Nations Human Rights Council passed a resolution calling for an end to the fighting in Qusair and to the use of heavy weaponry by the Assad regime on civilian populations. Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, called the resolution "odious."
Britain sent a letter to UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon with new information of alleged chemical weapons use by the Syrian government. The US state department said it did not know when its own investigation would be concluded.
The Local Coordination Committees of Syria, an activist monitoring group, reports that at least 83 people were killed Wednesday in Syria, including 22 in and around Damascus, 19 in Lattakia and 13 in Homs. The numbers cannot be verified because media access to Syria is limited.
The Syrian National Coalition of opposition groups has released a statement on the anticipated "Geneva II" peace talks next month. The statement says the "head of the regime" must be "excluded from the political process" – but it is unclear to what extent the statement leaves room for the current Syrian government to participate in the planned Geneva talks:
The Syrian Coalition welcomes international efforts to find a political solution to the suffering Syrians have endured for over two years. Moreover, the Syrian Coalition wants to highlight its commitment to the revolution’s fundamentals and to the political framework approved on February 15th, 2013, which requires the head of the regime, security and military leadership to step down and be excluded from the political process.
The Syrian Coalition deems these goals necessary to lead to an effective political solution:
1. Halt the murder and destruction perpetrated by the regime. 2. Empower revolutionary forces to defend oppressed Syrian people. 3. Halt Iran and Hezbollah's invasion of Syria and expel them from the country.
We stress that Syrian participation is needed to set a timetable for these solutions with the international community offering binding guarantees.
Finally, for these political efforts to succeed the international community and the Friends of Syria, in particular, must uphold their commitments to the Syrian people and revolution by ensuring their right to self-defense.
We ask for Mercy for our martyrs, health for our wounded, and freedom for our detainees.
Long live Syria and its people, free and with honor.
The Associated Press has more quoted material from Moallem's interview on Lebanese TV station Al-Mayadeen:
The Syrian foreign minister said Assad will remain in his post at least until scheduled elections in 2014. "From now until the next elections, President Bashar Assad is president of the Syrian Arab Republic," he said. "Will Assad run in 2014 or not? This depends on the circumstances in 2014 and on the popular will. If the people want him to run, he will run. If the people don't want that, I don't think he will. Let us not jump the gun." The United States and its allies have repeatedly called on Assad to step down. Al-Moallem said that "Americans have no business in deciding who will run Syria," adding that this "would be a precedent in international relations that we must not allow." The foreign minister also said that "anything agreed on in Geneva will be held to a referendum in Syria." "If it wins the support of the Syrian people, we will go ahead with it," he said.
Robert Ford, the top US diplomat to Syria, is said to be exhausted and plans to step down after the Geneva peace talks, Laura Rozen of al-Monitor reports:
Earlier this month Ford traveled into Syria from Turkey with a convoy of US food aid, to meet with Syrian rebel commanders and urge them to support transition talks planned to be held in Geneva next month. [...]
He is said by multiple officials to be exhausted, including from his efforts trying to unify the fractious Syrian opposition. The Back Channel was unable to reach Ford Wednesday.
Guardian European editor Ian Traynor reports on the growing argument over who should participate in the make-or-break Syria peace talks to be held in Geneva next month:
Serious obstacles remain to the talks being held at all, however, including divisions in the international community over whether Iran should take part, and disarray among Syrian opposition groups.
On Wednesday evening the Syrian government confirmed for the first time that it would attend the peace talks. It has not decided on the make-up of its delegation. Russia has previously said it can guarantee a high-level presence from Damascus.
A senior UN official involved in preparing the talks told the Guardian that the biggest problem was getting the right people from both sides of the conflict to attend. "We need credible negotiating partners. This is the most important issue. This is not yet solved. The first condition concerns the quality of the talks," he said.
In an interview on Lebanese television, Syrian foreign minister Walid Moallem outlined conditions for the government's participation in Geneva peace talks so out of step with opposition demands as to undermine the government's stated intention to participate.
Moallem said the Syrian government would attend the talks ""with every good intention" of reaching a peace settlement. But he went on to say that president Bashar Assad would complete his current term, ending in 2014, and may run again – when Assad's exit is the top priority for every party that would ostensibly wind up on the other side of the table in peace negotiations.
Moallem also called for a national referendum in a country that the UN secretary general declared Wednesday is "disintegrating."
UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon said Syria is "disintegrating" and urged international support for peace talks in Geneva next month, the AP reports:
Ban said the conflict has "deep political roots" and won't be solved militarily even if the parties and some supporters believe a military solution is possible. "Syria is disintegrating before our eyes," he warned in a message to a meeting on Syria in Tehran Wednesday. "The chaos is creating fertile ground for radicalism and increasingly threatens regional stability." Ban made clear his opposition to supplying weapons to either side and to groups like Hezbollah sending fighters. "I urge all parties to use their influence to help stop the arms flows and persuade outside groups to withdraw fighters from Syria," he said.
Carney closes with a further statement condemning Assad.
"It is an abomination for the Syrian regime to participate in the massacre of tens of thousands of its citizens," Carney says. "That is an abomination."
"Assad long ago gave up the opportunity to participate in a transition process that would improve the Syrian people... he chose instead to wage war on his people. We are unapologetic about [calling for Assad's ejection]."
Carney is asked about breaking news reports that Assad's government intends to attend peace talks and that Assad may "run" for another term as Syrian president.
"If you're telling me Assad intends to cling to power, I don't think that's news," Carney says. "I think that the Syrian people disagree."
Then he repeats the US line that Assad must go:
[Geneva] has to result in a post-Assad Syria. The end result here has to be a political transition that does not include, at the end, Bashar al-Assad in power.
Two big announcements via the Associated Press Beirut bureau. Representatives of the Assad regime plan to attend peace talks anticipated next month for Geneva, foreign minister Walid al-Moallem has said in a TV interview Wednesday.
But the terms of the Syrian participation appear to be definitively at odds with the opposition demand that Assad be removed from power; according to the AP report, Moallem said that Assad would remain Syria's president until 2014 elections – and may run again:
BEIRUT (AP) Syria's foreign minister says his government will attend planned Syrian peace talks "with every good intention" to reach a deal. But he says the Syrian opposition is setting preconditions. Walid al-Moallem said in a TV interview Wednesday that U.N.-sponsored peace talks, tentatively to be launched next month in Geneva, present a "real opportunity" for ending the country's civil war. Al-Moallem says Syria rejects the opposition's apparent condition for attending talks, that President Bashar Assad step down at the start of any transition period. Al-Moallem told the Lebanese TV station Al-Mayadeen that "only the Syrian people can decide who is to rule Syria."
Psaki wraps her briefing and Carney is on to other topics. A quick summary of their points on Syria:
The state department opened its daily briefing by condemning "in the strongest terms" Hezbollah's involvement in the Syrian war. "This is an unacceptable and extremely dangerous escalation," Psaki says. "We demand that Hezbollah withdraw."
White House spokesman Jay Carney acknowledged the possibility that rebel forces had encountered setbacks in Syria. "There are obviously ebbs and flows in something like this," he says.
The state department does not consider Iran as a potential good-faith partner in the anticipated Syrian peace talks in Geneva next month. The White House spokesman implied that Assad's exit is a precondition of any peace deal. "Syria's future cannot involve the Assad regime," Carney said.
Carney is asked about reports of the British finding of new chemical weapons evidence. He says "I have no new announcements to make on this issue, but we are continuing to pursue this matter."
We continue to work with our partners and allies as well as the opposition in putting together and gathering evidence, facts that corroborate the information we have. WE continue to press for the Assad regime to allow UN investigators to go into this country.
Carney, the White House spokesman, is asked about Senator John McCain's trip to Syria Monday. Did the administration have advance warning of the trip?
"We were aware of his trip, and we look forward to-- the president does -- discussing with Senator McCain his visit," Carney says.
No word on when that might happen.
Another question on Syria for Carney: Are the rebels winning? Gaining ground?
I would say that Assad remains in a vulnerable position. His control over his country is extremely reduced because of the strength of the opposition. There are obviously ebbs and flows in something like this. We have noted the role played by Iran in supporting Assad. We have noted the role played by Hezbollah in supporting Assad.
That says a lot about the Assad regime, in terms of the friends it has....
I'm not able to give daily and weekly battle assessments.
Psaki is asked about Russia's plan to deliver S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to the Assad regime, and the possibility that Israel would bomb the shipment upon delivery.
"On the S-300s.... the Russians have said they are delivering on past contracts," Psaki says. "We support Israel's right to defend itself.. but we remain committed to a political transition."
Psaki says she does not know when the Russians plan to deliver the missiles.
Psaki is asked about the new British report of chemical weapons use by the Assad regime. When will the US issue its own report?
"Unfortunately I can't give you an internal....timeline. As the president has said, it's not about the timeline, it's about getting the facts right," Psaki says.
But what's taking so long?
"We've talked about this a little bit before," Psaki says, and then references intelligence failures that led to the invasion of Iraq. "There's past history here... where we want to make sure we have our facts straight... We've been working diligently, but we're not going to set a deadline for it."
Psaki, the state department spokeswoman, is asked about arguments inside the opposition about who should represent it at peace talks in the form of the Syrian National Coalition.
Psaki says the opposition faces expected "challenges of trying to elect a body and move forward in a united front" and "we are working very closely with them."
"We expect that we will be working with the elected member of the opposition, as soon as that is done," Psaki says.
Obviously this has taken longer than anticipated. We've been very encouraging of them... as they work through these issues. We know it's not easy. This isn't easy, any aspect. We remain committed to working with the opposition.
Psaki says the state department does not consider Iran as a potential good-faith partner in the anticipated Syrian peace talks in Geneva next month
Question for Psaki: You demand that Hezbollah withdraw. What if Hezbollah does not withdraw?
"We have parallel tracks that we are pursuing," Psaki says. "One is the diplomatic track...[the other is to] increase our aid and support for the opposition."
State department spokesperson Jen Psaki begins the daily briefing with a statement condemning "in the strongest terms" Hezbollah's involvement in the Syrian war.
This is an unacceptable and extremely dangerous escalation," Psaki says. "We demand that Hezbollah withdraw."
The Syrian Republican Guard has joined Hezbollah fighters in the battle for Qusair, Agence France-Presse reports:
Syrian elite troops rushed to bolster a Hezbollah-led offensive against rebels in the strategic town of Qusayr on Wednesday as the UN Human Rights Council debated a resolution condemning the assault. [...]
On the ground, elite Syrian Republican Guards and Hezbollah fighters rushed to Qusayr as government fighter jets pounded rebel areas, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Syrian state television reported that regime forces had seized Dabaa military airport north of Qusayr that had been in rebel hands and fierce fighting was raging in the area.
The road linking Dabaa to Qusayr is the only exite route for rebels who are entrenched in the north and west of Qusayr.
Hezbollah's television, Al-Manar, showed live images it said were from Dabaa airport taken after the army had recaptured the facility.
Both the White House and state department have scheduled briefings for this afternoon likely to address Syria. The White House briefing is expected to begin shortly.
The state-run Sana news agency has posted a notice that an interview with Bashar Assad will air Thursday on Hezbollah's Al-Manar television station in Lebanon and on Syrian stations.
Reuters picks up on Syrian state media reports that regime forces backed by Hezbollah fighters have seized an air base in Dabaa village near the town of Qusair on Wednesday:
Assad troops and Hezbollah fighters already surround the border town of Qusair from three sides. Taking control of Dabaa, on the northern side of Qusair, would put the strategic town under siege from four sides.
The Pentagon is pushing back against a report yesterday that president Barack Obama had asked the defense department recently to draft a plan for a no-fly zone in Syria to be enforced by the US and others.
There “is no new military planning effort underway with regard to Syria,” Pentagon press secretary George Little said in a statement.
Meanwhile the White House is "is downplaying — but not denying — the report," Politico reported Wednesday morning.
“I’m not going to discuss our internal deliberations, but we have said for many months that the administration is prepared for a variety of contingencies in Syria and all options are on the table,” National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said in a statement.
As the UN takes up a new US-backed draft resolution condemning the use of heavy weapons against civilians by the Syrian regime, Britain has sent a letter to UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon with new information of alleged chemical weapons use by the Syrian government, the Associated Press reports:
Britain's U.N. Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said Thursday that his government has continued to update the secretary-general and the head of the U.N. team Ban appointed to investigate the alleged chemical weapons attacks with new information.
"I sent a further notification to the secretary-general last week," he told several reporters.
Lyall Grant said Britain believes all the alleged chemical weapons attacks are by the government. He said the British government has no evidence that the opposition has obtained chemical weapons or used them.
Syria asked the U.N. to investigate an alleged chemical weapons attack in Aleppo in March but is refusing to broaden the investigation to other alleged incidents.
French foreign minister Laurent Fabius has told an assembly meeting that Hezbollah has deployed between 3,000 and 4,000 combatants in Syria, Agence France-Presse reports:
"As for Hezbollah militants in battle, the figures are anywhere from 3,000 to 10,000. Our estimate is around 3-4,000," Fabius said.
Update: The director of the Brookings Doha center puts the number at the upper end of the spectrum Fabius described:
Back in 2002 the United Nations declared 29 May to be the International Day of United Nations peacekeepers. In a ceremony to mark the day at UN headquarters in New York, secretary general Ban Ki-moon will preside over a wreath-laying ceremony to honour the more than 3,100 UN personnel killed in peacekeeping duty since 1948.
On Tuesday Austria said it would probably pull more than 300 peacekeepers out of the Golan Heights region of southern Syria if Britain arms the rebels.
Some 56 people have been killed in fighting across Syria today, including 14 in Damascus and 10 in Lattakia, in the west, according to the Local Co-ordination Committees, an activist group. Their figures could not be verified because media access to Syria is limited.
Navi Pillay, the UN's top human rights official, has said that Syria's civil war is "spilling out of control" and represents a colossal failure to protect civilians.
Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, has criticised as "odious" a US-backed draft resolution condemning the Syrian government before a debate at the UN human rights council on Wednesday. Lavrov said the "extremely unwholesome initiative" would damage attempts to end the Syrian civil war and convene a planned peace conference.
Government forces have destroyed several trucks carrying crude oil being smuggled from eastern Syrian oil fields to Turkey, according to Damascus state TV. Syria's oil minister says the country's production has fallen drastically over the past two years because of the civil war.
Government forces have destroyed several trucks carrying crude oil being smuggled from eastern Syrian oil fields to Turkey, according to Damascus state TV.
“Terrorists” smuggling the consignment had been killed, state TV said. It added that the tankers were travelling from the Tayern oil field, which rebels said earlier this month was partly under their control.
In an impressively clear-sighted article in the London Review of Books, the Middle East-based journalist Patrick Cockburn notes that “the protracted conflict that is now under way in Syria has more in common with the civil wars in Lebanon and Iraq than with the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya or the even swifter regime changes in Egypt and Tunisia at the start of the Arab Spring”.
He believes Syria, Iraq and Lebanon are now all “fragmented”: “In all three places the power of the central state is draining away as communities retreat into their own well-defended and near autonomous enclaves.”
The feeling that the future of whole states is in doubt is growing across the Middle East – for the first time since Britain and France carved up the remains of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War. ‘It is the end of Sykes-Picot,’ I was told repeatedly in Iraq; the reference was to the agreement of 1916 which divided up the spoils between Britain and France and was the basis for later treaties. Some are jubilant at the collapse of the old order, notably the thirty million Kurds who were left without a state of their own after the Ottoman collapse and are now spread across Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria. They feel their moment has come: they are close to independence in Iraq and are striking a deal with the Turkish government for political rights and civil equality.
"We are unhappy with the prospect of these very serious weapons arriving in Syria but we cannot stop Russia delivering them to the Middle East. We would not strike a Russian target – our egos are big but they're not that big," one senior Israeli diplomat told the Guardian on condition of anonymity.
The Israeli military will not hesitate, however, to take any steps necessary to prevent the transfer of this sophisticated Russian anti-aircraft technology to Hezbollah militants or other hostile groups.
"I don't know how upset the Russians would be if, at some point between payment and the installation of this technology in Damascus by Russian experts, something was done to damage the weaponry. As long as no Russians were hurt and they got paid, I don't think they would care," the diplomat added ...
Israel's major concern is not that the Assad regime will use its sophisticated Russian- and Iranian-supplied weaponry against Israel – a move described by Israeli officials as "suicide" – but where the arms will end up if and when the regime falls.
France is opposing inviting Iran to the planned Syrian peace talks. Russia insists upon it. Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, said today that this would be “extremely dangerous”:
We fear that if they are part of the Syrian conference they will try to drag things on to such an extent that they will blackmail us saying that the Syrian crisis can only be resolved on condition that they have the nuclear bomb.
It would be a mistake to "ask people to attend a conference whose objective is to prevent a positive solution", he said.
Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi said today Tehran "supports Geneva talks [the peace conference] and UN efforts”.
Meanwhile, Sergei Lavrov, his Russian counterpart, added his voice to those from Moscow attacking the EU’s decision to drop its arms embargo on the Syrian rebels, saying that the move “at a minimum creates serious hurdles” to plans for the peace conference.
Navi Pillay, the UN's top human rights official, has said that Syria's civil war is "spilling out of control" and represents a colossal failure to protect civilians.
Pillay told the UN human rights council that war crimes and crimes against humanity were routinely being committed in Syria.
The council is considering a US-backed resolution calling for a probe into alleged abuses carried out by government forces and Hezbollah fighters in the Syrian town of Qusair, near Lebanon and seeking more aid access and civilian protections.
The Local Co-ordination Committees, a Syrian activist group, says 16 people have been killed in fighting so far today, including nine in Damascus and its suburbs and four in Daraa, in the south-west.
Their figures cannot be verified because media access to Syria is limited.
Syria's oil minister says the country's production has fallen drastically over the past two years because of the civil war. Suleiman Abbas told the Syrian parliament that daily oil production stood at 20,000 barrels, roughly 5% of the 380,000 barrels produced daily before the March 2011 uprising against Bashar al-Assad began.
Oil was the main source of revenue for the government until the European Union imposed an embargo to punish Damascus for its crackdown on the opposition.
The rebels have captured much of northern and eastern Syria, where most of its oil fields are located.
The EU lifted its oil embargo last month to allow crude exports from rebel-held territory.
If we all adhere to such settlement [organising the peace conference], then we must avoid one-sided spoilers and do everything to persuade all opposition members to sit down for talks without any preconditions. It's necessary that all of us work honestly and without double standards, speaking in support of the conference while simultaneously taking action to derail the proposal.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov's comments about the US-backed Syria human rights declaration are getting more and more aggressive. Now Reuters is quoting him as describing the motion as "odious".
The human rights draft resolution was submitted by the US, Qatar and Turkey and condemns the use of heavy weapons against civilians and other rights abuses by the Syrian regime.
Lavrov called it "one-sided" and said he was surprised the US was one of the sponsors, saying it ran contrary to the US's pledge to help organise the planned peace conference.
Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, has criticised a US-backed draft resolution condemning the Syrian government ahead of a debate at the UN human rights council today.
Lavrov said the "extremely unwholesome initiative" would damage attempts to end the civil war and convene the planned peace conference.
The New York Times reports from Hermel, just across the border from Syria in Lebanon, where rocket attacks have become more frequent and a 17-year-old girl was killed on Monday.
Residents said they believed that they were being targeted because Hezbollah, the pro-Syrian Lebanese Shiite militant group, is the political power in the village and bases some operations nearby … Residents blamed jihadi extremists for the rocket fire and said they believed that the source was in the Lebanese town of Arsal. Those firing, they believe, are either Syrian rebels or their Lebanese Sunni sympathizers.
Yesterday Salam Idriss, the commander of the Free Syrian Army, threatened that his forces would “pursue Hezbollah to hell” if the Lebanese Shia militia continued to fight alongside Bashar al-Assad’s forces in Syria, calling on Beirut’s president Michel Suleiman to remove Hezbollah militants from Syrian territory within 24 hours or face the consequences. But as the NYT points out: “It is unclear how the Lebanese government can rein in Hezbollah, since it is the most seasoned and influential military force in the country, widely considered more powerful than the Lebanese Army.”
The Associated Press’s Barbara Surk reckons Hezbollah’s declaration of war on the Syrian rebels could damage its reputation at home as Lebanon’s champion against Israel, which it drove out of southern Lebanon in 2000 and fought to a standstill in 2006, and – a much greater risk – could bring the Syrian civil war to Lebanon.
“Its stance threatens to spark retaliation from Lebanese Sunnis supporting their Syrian brethren or from the rebels themselves carrying out attacks against the Shiite group on its home turf in Lebanon,” she writes, adding that “as more of their men return home in coffins from Syria, the group faces an uphill battle in trying to convince their countrymen that the war in Syria is part of their wider battle against Israel and its US backers”.
The understanding that proxy interventions actually prematurely end an existing conflict belies evidence that on the whole they actually prolong such conflicts largely because a weak warring faction is boosted to the point of creating stalemate. A flood of weapons or surrogate forces into an existing warzone gives one or other of the parties involved further motivation and support to fight on, not collapse or seek negotiation. With Britain and France now boldly declaring their desire to ship arms to the insurgents, Syria seems destined to endure a bloody extension of its civil war.
He also considers the idea that the EU’s arms embargo decision could create “blowback” for Europe – presumably retaliatory violence or action of some kind against its own citizens at home or abroad: “The nature of likely ‘blowback’ in the Syrian case can only be speculated upon but the potential for its occurrence seems to have played little or no part in the policy calculations of William Hague or his French counter-part Laurent Fabius.”
Good morning and welcome to today’s Middle East live blog, which we will be updating throughout the day.
Here are this morning’s headlines:
Syria
The Syrian National Coalition – the main umbrella opposition group backed by the west – expressed its “deepest gratitude” to the EU for its decision to lift the arms embargo on the Syrian rebels but called for “specialised weaponry” to be sent soon. “Despite the importance of this decision, the words must be solidified by action,” the statement said. “The Coalition urges that a quick response be implemented by supplying the Free Syrian Army with specialised weaponry to repel the fierce attacks waged against unarmed civilians by Assad, Hezbollah, and Iranian forces.” Yesterday Salam Idriss, the commander of the Free Syrian Army umbrella rebel group, and the man British foreign secretary William Hague named as being a probable conduit of any arms shipment, said he was “very disappointed” the FSA would not be getting weapons immediately, and said he had run out of patience with the international community. The FSA is nominally in charge of rebel units on the ground, but in reality can exercise only very loose control over them; the connections between the Syrian National Coalition and the FSA are similarly weak.
The US yesterday criticised Moscow’s decision to send one of its most advanced anti-aircraft missiles to the Syrian government hours after the EU ended its arms embargo on the rebels. By contrast, Washington welcomed the EU’s move, which was pushed through by Britain and France against the wishes of the other 25 members of the union. But analysts noted that both moves were more symbolic than practical at this point. Michael Elleman, a missile expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Bahrain, asked:
Does Russia have S-300 [anti-aircraft missile] batteries ready to go? I'm not sure that it does. Is it going to send engineers to integrate it with existing [air defence] architecture? Will they send trainers for the one to two years it takes to train people to use it? This seems more like an exercise in political signalling to me, saying: 'Hands off Syria.'
And Daniel Levy at the European Council on Foreign Relations argued that there could be more posturing than substance in the lifting of the EU arms embargo as any eventual weapons deliveries would be limited by legal and political constraints.
The future of the long-running UN peacekeeping mission on the strategic Golan Heights between Syria and Israel has been thrown into question as a result of the lifting of the EU arms embargo, Ian Traynor reports from Brussels. The Austrian chancellor, Werner Faymann, and vice-chancellor, Michael Spindelegger, said yesterday they would probably pull more than 300 peacekeepers out if Britain helped arm the rebellion against Bashar al-Assad's regime. A withdrawal would heighten the growing sense of greater Middle East crisis, creating a vacuum on the strategically vital Heights which the Israelis would be tempted to fill quickly.
The opposition Syrian National Coalition is holding fractious internal debates in Istanbul over its leadership and whether or not it should attend the planned Geneva peace talks being organised by the US and Russia. Turkish officials say they are confident that there will be opposition representation. It is unclear, however, whether Iran will attend in the face of determined Saudi opposition to their participation. Riyadh has threatened to boycott the talks if Iran attends, officials in Ankara said.
Splits in the Syrian opposition were highlighted when four opposition factions – the Syrian Revolution General Commission, the Local Co-ordination Committees in Syria, the Syrian Revolution Coordinators' Union, and the Supreme Council for the Leadership of the Syrian Revolution – issued a statement complaining about the Syrian National Coalition’s “attempt to expand membership” to “persons and groups that have no real impact on the revolution”. The SNC leadership has “failed to fulfil its responsibility to represent the great Syrian people's revolution at the organisational, political, and humanitarian levels”, it said. The statement was a “final warning” – presumably of the groups’ intent to leave the umbrella of the SNC.
Simon Jenkins suspects that the west’s turning against the dictators of the Middle East and abetting their downfall “may yet prove the most disastrous miscalculation of western diplomacy since the rise of fascism”.
Syria is at present certainly a claim on the world's humanitarian resources, to be honoured by supporting the refugee camps and aid agencies active in the area. Assad's suppression of revolt has been appallingly brutal, but he was Britain's friend, as was Saddam, long after his regime began its brutality. That is how things are in this part of the world. The west cannot stop them. To conclude that "we cannot allow this to happen" assumes a potency over other people's affairs that "we" do not possess. Pouring arms into Syria will no more topple Assad or "drive him to the negotiating table" than did two years of blood-curdling sanctions.
More weapons will more likely entrench warlordism, prompt Assad's backers to increase their military support, and give substance to his claim to be fighting a foreign-backed Islamist plot, adds a Guardian leader column.
Some 112 people were killed in fighting across Syria yesterday, including 35 in Damascus and its suburbs and 22 in Aleppo, according to opposition group the Local Co-ordination Committees. Another activist group, the Syrian Network for Human Rights, said 111 had died, including 33 in and around the capital and 18 in Aleppo. Their figures cannot be verified because media access to Syria is limited.
Assad may be asking himself what has changed as he studies the EU’s arms embargo announcement, writes Simon Tisdall:
What has changed is that the two-year civil war is ever closer to fulfilling predictions that it will spill into neighbouring countries, principally Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Turkey, and spark a regional sectarian conflagration. Weekend missile attacks in southern Lebanon and Israel were further proof of that contention, as was Hezbollah's admission that its forces were fighting alongside Assad's troops.
What has changed, as Oxfam among others has warned, is that by fuelling the conflict by sending yet more weapons to the combatants, Britain and France risk stoking a further rapid and potentially disastrous escalation; risk adding to the appalling toll of 80,000 people dead and millions displaced; and risk shooting down and killing off the already enfeebled diplomatic process they seek to sustain.
Martin Chulov explains that the US has put its faith in Salam Idriss, the commander of the Free Syrian Army, as someone who can be trusted to be supplied with weapons via Saudi Arabia:
A reluctant US administration has lately settled on Salam Idriss, the commander of the umbrella guerilla group, the Free Syria Army, as a leader in whom it is prepared to take a risk. Dealings between Idriss and the US military have stepped up in recent months, both in Jordan and Turkey, where small groups of Syrian rebels are being trained.
An influx of Saudi supplied weapons that crossed the Jordanian border earlier this year were channelled through vetted Idriss loyalists. The supply included explosives that can take out tanks and cause extensive damage to structures as rebels advance. But it did not include the holy grail of heat seekers [shoulder-launched heat-seeking missiles].
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